


Don't Panic

by fyeahblackturtlenecks, shutyourcommiemouth



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Charles is a nerd, Child Abuse, Drunk Charles, Erik has so many issues, Explicit content in later chapters, F/M, High School AU, M/M, Non-powered AU, So many Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references, The title is a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, including dyslexia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-11 20:31:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2082156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyeahblackturtlenecks/pseuds/fyeahblackturtlenecks, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutyourcommiemouth/pseuds/shutyourcommiemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles and Erik met when they were both hungover, and it all went downhill from there. Or uphill, depending on who you ask.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this happened because we were bored and we had just watched First Class, so the logical thing to do was to write a high school AU. This is going to be written in two POVS. Charles is written by shutyourcommiemouth, and Erik is written by fyeahblackturtlenecks. Have fun, I guess?-fyeahblackturtlenecks
> 
> This is a formal apology for everything that I have and ever will write. I hope you enjoy it anyway.--shutyourcommiemouth

Charles woke up in a field, remarkably hungover and alarmingly confused. The sun, despite its position creeping up the horizon, was very bright, even at such an early morning hour and was glaring right into his throbbing eyes. Well, to be fair, his entire head was throbbing, so maybe it wasn’t the sun’s fault entirely. He managed to sit himself up, using some fistfuls of grass to do so, and made a pitiful keening sound in the back of his throat when he finally was upright. _Oh god_ , he clutched at his head with dirty hands from laying on the grass, _I think I’m going to die. And you deserve it_ , he scolded himself, _if you can’t hold your liquor properly, Charles, than you deserve to feel like death warmed up the morning after._

With his hands balled into fists and pressing up against his temples and eyes, he racked his brain as to what the bloody hell he was doing there. And where there actually was. He bravely cracked open his eyes and discovered that his field was actually a very large, very unkempt backyard. _Well, okay, that’s progress,_ he thought to himself. And the house did seem familiar to his alcohol-rattled mind, so that was good. The golden question, Charles thought, was why he was there in the first place.

It was fuzzy, his recollection from the previous night, but he vaguely remembered Raven being there. Which wasn't surprising, since Charles rarely went out of the house without his darling, darling sister. So, if Raven was apparently there, and it appeared that Charles had consumed his own weight in (judging by the awful taste in his mouth) cheap beer, he had been at a party. Right, a party. Why would he, Charles Francis Xavier, ever go to a party with his footloose, fancy free sister?

He remembered being at school the day before, a blessed Friday, and Raven going on and on about some… event that was going to take place that night. And, with his awe-inspiring brilliance, he figured out that “the event” was a kegger he had seemingly passed out behind. Then, it kind of struck him. He just passed out, drunk off his ass in a field, all too much like Douglas Adams. The thought made him want to giggle a bit, but the thought of making any other noise besides the pitiful whimpers he was already emitting made his stomach heave. Just don’t forget to carry a towel and don’t pan-

He looked down at his palm, and paled as he saw the words “Don’t Panic” written clearly in black marker. Now, most people wouldn’t worry (or panic) at seeing writing on their persons, but this meant that, while intoxicated, Charles was on a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy kick. Which meant references. Lots and lots of references. He wanted to cry. And he wanted to go find Raven.

Then, as if some celestial being had taken pity on his poor hungover soul, he heard the creaky back door slam open, and a very rugged but mobile (the same could not be said for Charles) Raven stumbled out towards him. Charles may or may not have released a few tears of relief as she trudged over. But, once she was a few meters away, it finally struck him that this whole getting-drunk-and-doing-horribly-nerdy-things-while-being-drunk-and-then-passing-out-on-the-cold-dirty-ground-outside was inadvertently her fault, and he allowed himself to get a little angry. But, because he was Charles, and she was Raven, and he loved his dear sister, he could only reach a state of mild annoyance.

“What did you let me do?” he questioned her when she got close enough to block out the increasingly bright sun, head tilted back to fight off the wave of dizziness and nausea that made him want to curl back up with the grass. She ignored him, and like the unsympathetic monster she was, she wrapped her hands around his bicep, making the sleeve of his sweater ride up his forearm, and hauled him to his feet. He might have blacked out for a second there, and when he came to, Raven was dragging him inside, and chatting in his ear.

“Man, Charles, you were insane last night. Like, I am so proud that you’re my brother. You chugged down this, this, I don’t even know what it was, but it was huge and you did it and it was awesome.” Each syllable sent a dagger into his frontal lobe, and he fought the urge to clamp his hands over her mouth for some blessed silence. In the end, he managed to restrain himself, and was dragged after her through the house and into the kitchen.

Charles blinked as he took in the after-party-carnage in the kitchen, and the sight of the terrifically attractive guy leaning against the counter next to the coffee maker, which was making the room smell wonderful. _Oh god_ , Charles stared at the guy, his mouth more than watering a little. _Look at his jaw line._

 ~~~~

There may have been good intentions in the beginning, an attempt at setting up a designated driver rotation, all of that responsibility crap that they teach you in the cursory week of alcohol and drug education at school-- “If you do drink, do it responsibly, don’t drive, blah blah blah…” but they’d either forgotten this fact or just stopped caring somewhere along the line. The night before had been a dim, blurry mess of losing track of both of his companions, finding Azazel in a corner with a girl who was probably a stripper and definitely too young, and giving up on Janos completely for the thirtieth time. But at least Erik had remembered to not even try to get home after discovering the (locked) bar.

The unfortunate side effect of being exempt by definition from the obligation of warm beer was, surprisingly, not as bad as usual. He wasn’t naked in a stranger’s bed, he didn’t have any new tattoos (that he could see), and as far as he knew, the room he’d crashed in hadn’t hosted any canoodling teenagers. By his standards, he’d spent the night in the party equivalent of a five-star hotel room. Erik sat up slowly, the faint but persistent headache weighing his eyelids down as he looked around the room. An average spare room in an average house with an average girl sprawled out and snoring softly on the floor.

Wait. What?

She had a dragonfly-wing tattoo reaching in inky tendrils across her back, and the brief glance that Erik had gotten before turning sharply away had proven her to be naked and her hair very much disheveled. Five stars got demoted to three as Erik got up as quietly as he possibly could, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the floor and picking up the brown leather jacket he’d tossed there the night before. Just as he thought he’d made a clean getaway, he felt something grab on to his ankle and stumbled against the door, losing his balance.

“Good morning, little brother,” Azazel’s deep, hungover groan rolled out from under the bed along with the rest of him. Erik looked over his shoulder and looked right back at the door upon seeing the other man shirtless and putting the pieces together. He let loose a few choice expletives in his native German under his breath as he righted himself.

“I’m not your brother, and you could at least wake me up and kick me out before having a one-night stand in the room I’m sleeping in,” he said gruffly, running a hand through his hair and taking a deep breath. “I’m leaving.”

“Angel’s not a one-night stand, little bro, we’re dating,” protested Azazel. “And we need a ride home!” he called, voice following Erik down the hall as he left the two of them to whatever they’d end up doing with their morning. Probably each other. He ignored them resolutely, even the following statement of “I heard some guy passed out in the backyard!” and instead ducked into the open bathroom, stepping over either a very large sweatsuit or a very small person to get to the mirror. Nothing written on his face, and his hair was still intact and still its original dark brown. Good enough. Careful not to step on the gray lump in the doorway, he made his way into the hall and down the stairs, going straight for the kitchen in hopes of finding a functioning coffee maker. It had long since stopped feeling awkward to poke around in other people’s cabinets for things like coffee and, in Janos’s case, Doritos. Besides, coffee always smelled better in the aftermath and wreckage of a party. Leaning against the counter and reaching hopefully into a random cupboard with the goal of stumbling upon a clean mug (mission accomplished), he waited for the coffee to finish brewing and tried not to look too creepy as he watched a disheveled and… incredibly attractive young man get dragged in from the backyard.

~~~~

_Good God, I want to dive into that gene pool_ , Charles couldn't help but think as he drank in his tall, muscular form with the rich brown hair and the steely eyes and... _wow, are those cheekbones real?_ It was only after checking the poor man out that he realized that he must look like he’d been mugged by nature, and that he was in no condition to be in the presence of so much hot. But, before he could flee to the bathroom to clean his face and poor clothes, Raven made an exclamation of surprise and surged forward to his side. **  
**

“Erik!” Both the guy and Charles looked at her sharply, and the guy unfolded himself to scoop the girl into a bone crushing hug. Charles remembered an Erik being mentioned by Raven in passing, during one of the few times she had opened up to him about her time in the foster system, before the Xaviers had taken her in. His headache eased away as he watched his sister and the guy break apart, smiling at each other like they hadn't been wanting to bite a bullet from their substantial hangovers seconds before.

“Raven, what are you doing here?” he asked, and Charles nearly doubled over, hearing how deep and…. _sexy_ his voice was.

“Oh, I live in the area, and I just had to bring my brother to an actual party, since it’s his last year of high school and he’s never been to one before,” her small but powerful (and painful) hands yanked him closer to the pair, and he panicked briefly that he could very likely vomit all over his shoes. But, it seemed his stomach was made of sterner stuff than that, and he just shuffled awkwardly, more than slightly mortified. “Erik, meet my brother Charles. Charles, this is Erik. We were in the system together, way back when,”

“Nice to meet you. Erik Lehnsherr,” the guy- Erik -stuck his hand out, and Charles put on his most charming smile as he shook it.

“Charles Xavier, my friend. It’s wonderful to meet a friend of Raven’s, since she’s the kind of person who never can find any,” he joked, and his sister playfully gasped in outrage and bumped their shoulders together.

“Charlie, how could you? I mean, I did just save you from being stuck in that backyard forever!” Charles laughed, and Erik’s eyebrows (his wonderful, wonderful eyebrows) raised at them.

“So _you’re_ the one who passed out in the back?” he questioned, and Charles’s ears burned an embarrassing shade of red. He coughed into his fist, looking at Raven to help him, but Erik trudged on, stepping a bit closer. “And, wait, aren't you the guy who asked me about the,” his eyes flicked to the left, thinking hard, “the Babel Fish in my ear?” Charles wanted the ground to swallow him whole. Wait, no, he wanted the earth to chew him a bit. There was a brief flash of memory, in the jumble of the rest of the night, of someone speaking in rapid German. Very slurred German, but definitely German. Yeah, the ground devouring his hopeless carcass sounded very nice. He’d deserve it for being such a loser. He knew, he knew, that he’d done something stupid and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy related, but he had never expected to have done it to the smoking piece of ass who apparently knew his sister. Oh god. Not even drunk did he have any game.

“Yeah, um, that sounds like something I would do,” he gave Erik a smile, his hand rubbing though his grassy (ick) hair to try and distract himself from the embarrassment. There was a beat of silence where the two guys stared at one another, and it was only broken by Raven who cleared her throat loudly.

“So, Charles, how do you suppose we get home?” Charles stared at her. Does she mean that she dragged him here, got him unimaginably drunk, and then didn’t have an escape plan? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be horrified or annoyed.

“Um,” Erik interjected. It was Erik’s turn to look embarrassed, and the siblings stared at him. “I've got a car, and I can give you a ride home, if you’d like,” he said, voice gruff and sharp, and Charles wanted to weep with happiness.

“Oh yes, please, that’s very kind of you,” Charles eagerly accepted, and Erik nodded, searching his leather jacket’s pocket for his car keys. Raven was thanking him as well as they left the kitchen, and Charles barely noted that Erik had abandoned his coffee that he had never touched. _Pity_ , Charles thought as they were lead outside. _That looked like a lovely cup of coffee._

~~~~~

He should have finished his coffee before leaving.

The hangover that wasn't so bad when he’d woken up still hadn't gotten as bad as it could have, but the added pressure of Charles Xavier following him out the front door wasn't helping. The headache, marginally worse than before, was now accompanied by a fluttery almost-nausea that just bordered on uncomfortable. The group filed out the door, not bothering to say goodbye to anyone--Charles and Raven probably didn't have to, and Erik didn't feel like tracking anyone down again, accidentally or otherwise. He turned his keys over in his hand, one after the other, the faint jingling a backdrop for the stiff “So, where do you live?” that filled the space between doors closing and seat belts buckling. He would have been embarrassed, had it not been for the distracting glimpse of Charles’s hair in the rearview mirror. The backseat of the 1972 BMW 2002 that he prided himself on keeping clean enough to not qualify as a health hazard was starting to become a dumping ground for random garbage, his own and otherwise. He looked between Charles and Raven, not wanting to go anywhere before he had an answer, and the pained groan from the backseat didn't count.

“He’s not going to be any help,” Raven pointed out, and gave him an address in the metro area. He narrowed his eyes at her, confusion mixing with surprise and maybe a little jealousy. Remembering himself, he turned back to look at the road and started the car. “Dad’s a Congressman,” she explained briefly, and in his peripheral vision Erik could see her picking at her fingernails, a habit he’d watched develop on playgrounds and at the home when she didn't want to talk about something.

Of course he knew that Raven had been adopted--they had been in the same foster home at the time, and it’s hard to forget the day someone leaves, especially if she’d become a friend like Raven had to him. But Erik found it somehow hard to believe that people who could afford to live in the rich-people heartland of DC would even come close to adopting from a home. Then again, some people rich enough to live there ended up becoming a home, as he vividly remembered.

The stiff awkwardness that had begun to accumulate between the was (quite literally) smashed by Charles leaning forward between them. He ran a hand through his long hair, and Erik stopped at a red light, trying not to let his eyes shift outright to watch the action through to its completion. Charles let out a heavy sigh and ran a hand over his face as if to try and wipe away the very obvious headache he was suffering from. “Uh…” he cleared his throat, and Erik fixed his eyes firmly on the road in front of him instead of observing meticulously the adorable little wrinkle that formed between Charles’s eyebrows when he knitted them together briefly. “I must say, Erik, you have superior genes,” his voice was hoarse and Erik almost missed the words in between making sense of street signs. He didn't understand it at first, and neither was he able to make sense of the correct street name in time to make the proper turn, as Raven pointed out promptly.

“You could turn around right there,” Raven said, voice soft, indicating a u-turn just ahead while he let loose a small tirade of profanity and focused on not missing the turn, this time successful. “And that’s Charles’s idea of flirting with you,” she added carefully. From the backseat, a sweater-clad arm shot out to punch Raven sharply in the shoulder.

“Oh,” Erik said, pulling up in front of a townhouse that could have been a mansion. He parked the car and shifted in his seat to face the two now-bickering siblings. “Well. I failed biology. I’m dyslexic,” he said stiffly, as an explanation. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “But...thank you.” It sounded more like a question than a statement, and he didn't know where exactly to proceed from that point. He felt his face heat and looked down at the keychain dangling from its place in the ignition.

Raven and Charles stopped their playful and, in Charles’ case, embarrassed fighting in favor of unbuckling seat belts. Charles, still a bit pink and flustered, leaned forward again, placing a gentle hand on Erik’s shoulder. He looked up to the other’s soft expression and trained his focus on the window right behind Charles.  “The word “superior” has quite a few definitions,” he said gently.

Erik shrugged noncommittally and gave silent thanks when Raven held out a hand. “Give me your phone,” she said with a smile. “I’m going to put my number in, and you’re going to call it, and we’re going to catch up.” He reached into his pocket and extracted the beat-up, ancient flip phone he’d had for years and handed it to her with a stiff nod. Raven entered her number and took a picture for the contact, smiling brightly at the camera. “And we’ll see you around,” she said, handing it back.

He looked at the picture for a moment. Charles was in the background, shifting closer to the door. “See you,” he said, pulling Raven in for a final hug before she left, her brother following her. Erik realized that this whole time, Charles had been wearing a pair of incredibly skinny jeans, and that he liked them very much. He turned around, waving back at Erik with a squinty, hungover smile. He waved back and watched the boy and his sister retreat into the house. As the door closed behind them, he let himself lean forward against the steering wheel for a moment, hangover becoming steadily worse than before.

Charles Xavier thought he had superior genes.

He shoved his phone back into his pocket with one last glance at the picture of Raven and Charles and tried not to look at the letters on the street sign as they floated out of place in front of his eyes.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's chapter 2. Neither of us expected such a great response to the first one, and we really appreciate it :) Hope you like this one too!-fyeahblackturtlenecks
> 
> Sorry, again.-shutyourcommiemouth

_Azazel had, at some point, probably gone by a given name_ , Erik thought as he flipped his phone shut, _but he’s so big of an asshole that the only fitting name now is one straight out of Hell._

With a sigh, he shoved his phone back into the pocket of his oil-stained jeans and surveyed the exposed innards of the car in front of him. It was a simple job, just replacing a few worn-out parts, but he didn't want to have to drag it out any longer than he had to. And he didn't want to have to explain to his boss again that his asshole friend (for lack of a better term) needed a ride after doing something stupid. Again. And yet, he couldn't exactly call Azazel back and tell him no, call someone else and explain to them that you need a ride from the high school you used to attend because you've probably done something stupid and illegal to public property.

Erik couldn't help but glare at the note that he quickly wrote out, in case his boss got back from lunch and discovered his absence. Azazel was fully aware of the fact that Erik had no desire to go anywhere near the high school he’d dropped out of the day he turned eighteen, but that, apparently, had no effect on whom Azazel called for rides. He picked his keys up off of the communal, disorganized mess of tools that was the shop’s communal worktable and slipped out the back door to the employee parking lot.

As he pulled out of the spot he’d claimed for himself, he didn't bother to squint at street signs in a vain attempt to determine which way to go--the way to the school, from various locations in the city, was tattooed into his brain against his will and he wouldn't have been able to forget it even if he tried. He drove past the same kind of ornate houses that he’d passed on the way to drop off Charles Xavier only days before, and felt his mind wander involuntarily to the young man with the massive hangover and the downright majestic hair who’d sat in his backseat and told him he had superior genes. Raven had mentioned in passing that it was her brother’s last year of high school. Erik wondered if Charles went to the same high school that Azazel had most likely just vandalized. It was in a rich part of town, after all, the same part of town that Erik had lived in from the ages of eleven to almost eighteen.

Erik didn't want to, but he pulled into the parking lot of the high school and parked, getting out to lean against the closed door of the driver’s seat. “I am not going to look for you,” he called out, tone flat, “so if you still want to get somewhere, I suggest you get your ass over here.” He didn't bother to be nice; he didn't have any reason to. He saw Azazel’s tall form straighten out from behind a car and reach up to wave at him, weaving through the crowded cars with a shorter form following behind him, their head just barely clearing the tops of the shorter cars.

“Knew you’d come, little bro,” Azazel said, a huge grin stretching ear to ear as he wrapped an arm around the girl next to him. “You've already met Angel here,” he said proudly. “Well. In a way.”

Erik looked from Angel to Azazel and back again, trying to remember where he’d seen her before, and drew a blank. “Have I?’ he asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You almost stepped on me a couple days ago, at the party,” Angel supplied, and Erik felt like a bit of an asshole, to say the least. He ran a hand through his hair and looked awkwardly at his feet. “Is he always this awkward?”

Azazel wrapped an arm around Angel’s shoulders, the can of spray paint in his hand rattling as he did so. “Yeah, that’s kind of his thing.” His smile widened as Erik’s eyes drifted to the can in his hand.

“What did you vandalize?” he asked, getting straight to the point. If he was going to be the getaway driver, he might as know what he was driving away from.

“We got bored, decided to improve some rich kid’s paint job,” Angel supplied. Her face was flat as she pulled Azazel toward the car, trying the backseat door and, finding it unlocked, slipped inside. Her flimsy, floaty shirt slipped down her shoulder as she moved, revealing the thick lines of part of her wing tattoo, and Azazel smiled as he followed her.

Erik didn't bother telling them not to be disgusting in his car--on the way back, the quiet sounds of making out didn't seem to go any further, and he didn't want to turn around at a red light and risk checking.

~~~~

Charles was not having a good day to begin with, but this just made the whole thing into a bloody shitfest. He had overslept this morning, all thanks to his frantic oh-my-god-I-put-my-art-project-off-until-the-last-minute-I-guess-I’ll-do-it-all-tonight-which-is-the-day-before-it’s-due. So he was not happy when he arrived at school because, while he excelled in coursework due in the next 12 hours, art was not his strong suit. So his painting looked like a blind man had had a severe seizure while holding a paint brush on on poor, poor school-regulated canvas.

So yes, his day had started off bad. Terrible, even. But the end of his day ended up being even worse. Some jackass had spray-painted his car. His new, lovely car that was not even new, nor was it lovely, but it was his and god damn it someone _spray-painted_ the bloody thing. Charles wanted to find whoever did it, shove his hand down his throat, and rip his trachea out. He was enraged; that car was what he did with the leftover money his dad had left him after he died. The rest going into his college fund, of course. So yes, you could say he had a strong emotional attachment to the mobile pile of crap, so this was too far. And he had no idea what to do.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, and then stuck his bottom lip between his teeth to worry at it as he stared at his poor vehicle. He felt a hand come down to rest on his shoulder, and with a turn of his head noted that it was his own darling sister.

“You can take it to the body shop in town,” she suggested, and before he could protest that he would not be able to drive her home, then, she cut him off. “I’ll just get a ride from Darwin,” she shrugged, and turned in the vague direction of their group of friends and bellowed “Darwin, you’re driving me home!”

“I am not a taxi service!” was the reply that he shouted back, but it was followed by some amused snorts, so Charles was sure that he’d give her a lift.

“See, I’ll be fine. You go and get that… um, I’m not sure what that’s supposed to be painted over so your car is as good as new!” Raven gave him a little push, edging him closer to his car and what he was believing to be an red A with a pointed tail wrapping away from it that was painted on it. Well, at least it wasn't a penis. It would have been even worse to have his car vandalized by an immature moron with no sense of creativity.

“Yeah, I’ll see you at home, Raven. Don’t bother Darwin and the others too much,” he teased, and quickly opened the door and got into his car before his sister could whack him. His sister waved at him as he peeled out of the lot, heading away from the school and toward the city. The traffic into the city wasn't terrible, and with the CD in his stereo it was actually enjoyable if he just ignored the fact that he was driving in a brutally vandalized vehicle.He sang along to some U2, and the album was just about to start over again when he pulled up to the garage that was his destination. Charles’ face began to flush as he climbed out of the car, catching the red on the doors of his car out of the corner of his eye. Oh god, he thought to himself, what if they thought he was an idiot for getting his car graffitied?

“Hello?” he called into the seemingly empty garage once he locked his car and went inside, and he could faintly make out the sounds of someone dropping something metallic and cursing in what sounded like either German or Polish. Which automatically made him think of Erik Lehnsherr. Whom he had spent an uncomfortably large amount of time thinking about over the past few days. But, could you blame him? Someone with a body and voice like that was the stuff of legends.

Charles blinked. It seemed that he was beginning to suffer from hallucinations of the guy, because the door that lead to the reception area he was waiting in opened and revealed said Erik Lehnsherr. Okay. This wasn't so bad. Of all the things to hallucinate when he finally cracked, this fine piece of ass was definitely not the worst.

“Sorry about that, how can I help you?” _Wow,_ he thought, _this hallucination even comes with an authentic voice option_. He was looking down, wiping some grease off of his hands (oh look at those phalanges), and Charles’ heart leapt into his throat as those steely grey (possibly hallucinated) eyes looked up to stare right into Charles’ soul. And they froze. That was when Charles realized that he had not experienced a psychotic break, and the hunk of greased up fineness before him was very, very real, and words began to uncontrollably spill from his mouth.

“Hello Erik, it’s lovely to see you again, I hope you’re doing well. Um, well, it seems that someone has gone at my car with a vengeance and a can of spray paint. And I’d very much like it to go away. So yeah,” Charles scratched the back of his head, and Erik just blinked at him. _Oh no_ , Charles despaired, _now he thinks I’m a babbling moron._ And he’d probably be right. There were a few beats of silence, where the two stared at each other, before Erik burst into action, shaking his head and balling the rag into his hand and hooking his thumbs into his front pockets.

“Yeah, sure, I can help you, Charles. Lead the way,” Charles wanted to faint a little bit. Erik remembered his name. Maybe he wanted to faint more than a little bit. He kind of stumbled over his own feet as he twirled around to lead Erik to his car, tripping over himself in his haste. _Suave_ , Charles, he told himself. _Calm, cool, and collected_. Charles had never been suave, calm, cool, nor collected a day of his life. He had no hope of starting then.

The gentle blowing of the wind blew his too-long floppy hair into his face, and he tried his best to look dignified as he pushed it back. Standing next to his vandalized car, he knew he had not succeeded. Erik cursed in what Charles now was pretty sure was indeed German, gaining his attention and worry. When he turned his head, Erik was glaring back at the garage, his arms crossed in front of his muscular chest, making his perfectly formed biceps stand out as they strained against the grey t-shirt he was wearing.

“Sorry, Charles, I’ll be right back,” he muttered, and his heart plummeted. Wait, could he not save his poor motorized vehicle after all? Charles didn't realize he had asked the question out loud until Erik waved his hands, still clutched the rag, at him, shaking his head. “Oh no, don’t worry, I can help you. Don’t worry about that. It’s just that I have some business to attend to first,” he assured Charles, and his heart was in his chest once more.

“Oh, well, by all means,” he gestured wildly back to the garage, and Erik gave him a knee-weakening smile as he quickly made his way back inside. Charles bit the inside of his cheek, and scraped the toe of his shoe across the cracked asphalt. Oh man, he was so screwed.

~~~~

Erik considered himself as feeling his most comfortable, most relaxed, among the semi-dismembered cars and the twisted little pieces of metal that he knew exactly what to do with. It was why he loved his job so much, why he didn't see a reason to take any courses at the community college and "better himself," as his foster mother would have put it--he had the cars, his tools, and a boss who paid him well for the frequent overtime, so what else did he need?

He did not consider himself as feeling comfortable now. Erik tossed his rag on the hood of his most recently finished job and ran a hand through his hair absentmindedly as he looked for paint stripper among the cans and bottles of oil and antifreeze. He cursed Azazel under his breath for being an idiot. He could handle basic asshattery, little vandalisms he would hear about on the ride back or when he and Janos came to the shop or Erik's tiny apartment above it, but this was intolerable. This brought Charles Xavier to his little metallic sanctuary, and suddenly the things that Erik knew how to handle were one less. On the one hand, he had the paint and what Azazel called his "logo" (nothing more than a glorified tag, really...), and on the other...he had Charles Xavier.

Charles. The little rich kid whose hair was too long, whose jeans were too tight, and who had told Erik that his genes were superior. Erik had spent an impractical amount of time reliving that ride back to DC's metro area, despite its awkwardness. While his hands met deadlines, his mind replayed every little detail, right down to Charles's little groans of hungover pain when the car had rolled over a bump in the mostly impeccable road. Erik could not deny that the guy was attractive, but he still was not sure if he was going too far by letting himself think about him constantly. If he let it go much farther, he might get questions, and he really didn't want them coming from Janos or Azazel or worst of all Logan, if it started affecting his work.

Erik finally found the small white can he was looking for--crap, the supply was getting low again--and came back out to where Charles was waiting next to Azazel's unfortunate idea of fun. "Sorry about that," he said, clearing his throat as he crouched to assess the damage, and to decide if he needed to order more paint. The car was a generic beige and clearly an old model, which made sense--even a rich kid probably wouldn't have the latest Jaguar, especially if the rich kids were anything like the ones Erik had known at school and totalled a Lexus or four every few months. "It might take a few days," said Erik as he ran an experimental finger down the vibrant red lettering and found, with some dismay, that Azazel had used the usual, good stuff. It usually would have taken Erik only a day to get the bulk of the project done, but he had another paint job waiting for him in the garage, a stereotypical flames-on-the-side-of-a-pickup assignment, but it was detail work and it took longer. That was another thing Erik knew how to deal with--paint, and drawing pencils when he could get them cheap.

"That's alright," said Charles, relief softening the last notes of stress in his voice. "I just want it gone, in the end," he added, and Erik nodded his agreement. A stiff silence followed, as Erik opened the garage and tracked down a clean rag for the remainder of the paint stripper still in his hand. He would have to remind Logan that they were running out, so he could put in the books for the month that they'd had to restock...

"I'll need you to leave the key with me for the time being," he said, a bit stiffly, arms crossed over his chest. The chill that still lingered in the early March air had turned to ninety degrees under the collar of his turtleneck. He wasn't sure of exactly what he was supposed to do next, but Charles was standing there, not doing much of anything at all except for looking regretfully at the tag on his car. Charles reached into his coat pocket, eyes still on the graffiti, and pulled out his car keys, handing them over to Erik. Erik looked at them, the corner of his mouth curling up a bit as he noticed the double helix key chain that was part of it. He figured that Charles was probably the kind of person who took insanely difficult science courses for fun, and probably excelled in them too. "You have a way to get home?"

Charles's eyebrows shot up for a second, like he hadn't been expecting the question. The thought crossed Erik's mind that maybe he hadn't planned this far ahead. "I can drive you, if you don't," he said stiffly. The last thing he needed was this kind of distraction, especially now that he had another job to take care of, but he couldn't just...leave him to fend for himself, could he? Erik tucked the key with its double helix into his pocket and watched Charles's thumbs tap furiously at the screen.

"Oh, uh..." Charles looked up and flicked a stray strand of hair out of his eyes, reminding Erik that he'd been staring. "I've already arranged for a friend to come get me. But thank you," he smiled. Erik gave a quick nod in return, turning and walking back into the garage. He felt oddly hyperaware of the gravel crunching under two sets of feet; Charles was following him. Which meant that he'd be sticking around, at least until his friend showed up...which meant that Erik would have to engage in some level of small talk to pass the time.

He grabbed a can of bright orange paint and a small paintbrush--might as well make some progress, small talk be damned. As he dipped the brush in and resumed the careful, delicate flames winding around the handles of the passenger door, he said, without much thought, "I know who tagged your car."

Erik paused, trying to remember what the hell had possessed him to say that. A drop of orange fell from his brush to slowly roll down the door and he cursed under his breath, mopping it up gently with the rag in his other hand.

"Y-you do?" Charles sounded surprised, but Erik wasn't about to look up from his work to make sure.  

He sighed. Now there was definitely not enough paint stripper to go around. “Yeah…” he said reluctantly. Of all things, Azazel’s tendency toward vandalism and other small and illegal antics was suddenly appropriate small talk? “Azazel. You might have met him at the party, last week,” it was too late to take it back, dammit. “Another friend from the system. Well, I say friend…” Erik shook his head and went back to brushing flames onto the car. Might as well cut himself off before he said something else that he would regret. “I’m sorry about him.” The faint sound of gravel in the parking lot had him, for some reason, hoping vaguely that whoever had just shown up wasn't the friend that Charles had called for a ride.

“It’s fine,” Charles spoke slowly, and Erik thought he heard him suck in a breath before a buzzing sound distracted them both.

Erik looked up from his work and wondered how much more distracted he could possibly get. His eyes fell to rest on delicate pale fingers as they tapped out a quick message, then jumped up to take advantage of the fantastic view they had of Charles’s profile as he glanced out open garage door. “I've got to go, my friend’s here…” he said, the pace of his words quickening a little as he started towards the door, then caught himself and held out a hand as if the thought to do so had come as a something of a surprise. Erik was suddenly aware that he was holding a disgustingly paint-stained rag in one hand and a dripping brush in the other, and shifted the rag from his right to his left hand to properly return the handshake. “You can, er...get my number from Raven. To call me when the car’s ready,” said Charles, and Erik nodded as he divided his attention rather unevenly between the warmth and almost surprising strength of the other’s grip on his hand.

“I’ll make sure to do that,” Erik said as he pulled his hand back reluctantly. A horn honked in the parking lot, and Charles gave a sheepish little start at the sound before shooting Erik a small smile.

“See you soon, I suppose,” he said, already power-walking in the direction of the car.

“Definitely,” Erik called back as he watched Charles get into the passenger seat next to his friend, who looked phenomenally annoyed by something to say the least. Stop staring, he told himself, and with a final wave, he forced himself to turn around and shift the rag back to his right hand and at least make some progress on that flame detailing before starting on Charles’s car like he, for some reason, couldn’t wait to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *insert something jazzy*-shutyourcommiemouth
> 
> Adorable pining babies. Enough said. -fyeahblackturtlenecks

Charles couldn't remember ever sighing so much in all his life. It was bordering on ridiculous, really, when every few minutes or so he’d catch himself looking off into space, his chin resting in the palm of his hand, and blowing air wistfully out of his nose. Raven hadn't noticed the odd behavior, thank goodness, since she was too caught up with keeping in touch with the plethora of old friends from the system that she had uncovered when they'd run into Erik.

_Erik_ , he thought, giving yet another sigh, _and his amazing face. And body. And hair. And personality. And humor. And smile. Oh god_ , Charles turned to try and suffocate himself with the couch pillow that he was propped up on, _I really need to stop thinking about the guy. Think about anything else,_ he ordered himself. _Think of elephants_. He bit his lip, thinking back on the past trips to the zoo with Raven, and promptly wondered if Erik liked elephants.

Charles let out a pathetic wail, and collapsed sideways so that he could suffocate himself between the couch cushions, hoping for better results than last time. That, of course, was when he heard someone clearing their throat with the one ear that still wasn't wedged between the cushions. He surfaced for air to look at the entryway with one eye. Oh, right. Moira was coming over today.

“Charles, what are you doing?” her voice was resigned, like she had always known she would walk in to see him trying (and failing) to stop all of his oxygen intake using a sofa. He let out a low groan, and took up burrowing into the couch once more as Moira sighed (see, she was doing it too!) and took the seat next to his head. Her fingers carded through his hair, which was getting longer and fluffier with the day, and he briefly thought about cutting it, and if so, would Erik like it?

“Moira, please be a darling and leave me to end my life in peace,” his muffled plea fell on deaf ears as she chuckled, patting his head like he was a sweet little dog, and nudged him out from the crevice and into an upright position.

“There now, little poppet, tell Momma Moira what the problem is.” A crease between Charles’ eyebrows appeared as he stared at his (god help him) friend, bleeding concern.

“Firstly,” he said, intentionally leaning away from her, “Don’t call me poppet. I may be British, but I've never used that term in conversation ever. I doubt anyone has. Secondly, never refer to yourself as Momma Moira, because that is unbelievably creepy.” Moira snorted in an impressively dignified way and shoved at his shoulder gently. A smile finally began to tug at the corner of his mouth, and the tension in his forehead began to relax. Moira, he thought, looking at his friend, was a goddess among mere mortals. Or something like that.

“Fine, fine, you bloody wanker, I’ll stop,” she laughed, and Charles seriously considered taking back the compliment. “But seriously, what’s got you so…?” she trailed off, and Charles could almost see her trying to say that he looked like shit in the nicest way possible.

“Distressed?” he offered, and her lovely auburn hair bounced as she nodded quickly. Charles briefly entertained the thought of lying to her. He could tell her that it was all because of his car, or that Kurt was being a jackass again, or that it had finally hit him that David Beckham was married with children, thus making him unobtainable. But since Moira was probably going to go join the FBI and be the best goddamn spy the world will ever see, she would see right through him. And that would hurt her feelings, which was the eighth deadly sin, and a big no-no. “If I were to tell you it’s because of a boy, would you hit me?”

The pillow that whacked him in the face answered his question quite eloquently. Charles rubbed his poor, poor jaw, and stared at his horrible best friend with his trademarked “Poor Puppy Charles” look. Moira was as firm and unmoving as a giant ass rock. Charles internally cried over the fact that everyone he knew were giant meanies while Moira looked at him disapprovingly. Again.

“Charles, is this the same boy you were mooning over this past weekend while you consumed those gallon tubs of ice cream you begged me for?” The shade of red his ears turned answered her question more clearly than he could have done himself. She whacked him in the face again, growling his name in an attempt to knock some sense into his pretty, dumb head. All it ended up doing was making Charles suspect he had a concussion.

Upon reflection, Charles realized that Moira was right to be “So fucking done with you, Charles”, as she liked to put it, but it did not make his heart full of longing for Erik and his possible head injury feel any less painful. This was his chance to tell someone (not Raven, seeing as she actually knew the guy and was such a little shit that she would definitely go and squeal on him) how he felt about Erik, and goddamit, he was gonna do it! He was gonna tell her about how angular his face was, and how clever he was, and how brooding and mysterious he was. About how talented his fingers looked as the painted the tiny details onto that car in the garage, and how nice his ass looked in those jeans he had on. He was gonna tell, and she was gonna sit there and listen, and then hopefully not hit him anymore. And so he did. He filled in the holes from the last time he told her about him, and explained the most recent transpirings that had happened.

“Charles, on a scale of 1, being ‘Oh, that dude? Yeah, I’m pretty sure he sniffs glue and eats raw animal intestines, so don’t approach him’ to 10, being ‘I want to climb that bastard like a tree’, how much do you think you like this guy?” Charles bit his lip, and honestly really thought about it. For, like, seven seconds, before he hesitantly told her a good, solid 12. Moira hit him with another pillow. This time, Charles knew he deserved it.

“I’m sorry Moira, but you haven’t seen this guy! You could, I don’t know, pull him out of the ocean after he almost drowned, and he’d still look like a bloody model!” Moira wanted to bang her head against a hard, concrete surface. Repeatedly. She loved Charles, obviously she did. His home life was shit, and he was an amazing person, but the guy was kind of a moron. A brilliant, highly intelligent moron, but a moron nonetheless.

He was the kind of guy who could break down the sequencing of your DNA, but he was also the kind of guy to plan a wedding in his head before having a serious conversation with a person. To break it down, Charles had about the same amount of common sense as a particularly dim toddler. Not that that made him a bad person, but it did make him a frustrating one on the topic of love.

Charles was too quick to trust, and therefore too quick to love, people. She almost thought of him as a puppy who would run up to a stranger and give them his favorite squeaky toy to throw and play with him with, only to be confused when they pocketed it and don’t play fetch. It broke her heart every time she saw it happen, which was too often.

His mother, Sharon, was, to her knowledge, almost always drunk. She had seen some pictures of the Xavier family back before Charles’ dad, Brian, had died, and the lady of the house had seemed to be happy and alive rather than the sad drunk she was now. Also, Kurt, Charles’ stepdad was a giant dickhead, and his stepbrother Cain was no better. Back when his mum and Kurt had first gotten together, she had seen Charles try to make nice with his new family, and she had also seen how much of a disaster that turned out to be for her friend.

Things had gotten better when Raven was adopted by the Marko-Xavier family, which had been a blatant political move to try and get Kurt some support with voters. Charles and Raven took to each other like ducks to water, but there is only so much one good person in a house of three other asshats can do to make things better. So, Moria had always been there for Charles, and he for she. She was there when he realized he was gay, and he was there when she got dumped by her first boyfriend. She was there when his stepdad began his anti-gay-marriage movement, and he was there when her parents went through their divorce.

Charles was her best friend, and since she was his, they had duties. One of them being that they would always be there for each other, and that they would always have a shoulder to cry on. And a tub of ice cream to cry into. With a sigh and a fond look at the fluffy hair peeking up from above the pillow he was hiding under, Moria got up and headed to the kitchen for another tub and two spoons.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The door was unlocked when Erik went to open it. He screwed his eyes shut for a moment in tired exasperation, hand tightening on the loosened doorknob before finally entering the apartment that he shared with Azazel against his better judgement. It wasn't that he disliked living with him, not exactly, but he had always imagined that he’d have his own place when he finally got out of the system. Somewhere he wouldn't have to make compromises when it came to smoking, which he couldn't stand, or have to negotiate the morning after a girl had been invited over for the night, which was awkward for everyone involved. Harsh reality had left him calling up Azazel a month before finally moving out, and he hadn't managed to save enough in the few months since to pay rent on a whole apartment.

He wrinkled his nose at the distinctive smell of marijuana that greeted him as he stepped into the living room. The sight of Janos, perched outside on the fire escape with a joint clasped between two fingers, window open and welcoming to the fumes, explained what Erik already knew. “At least close the window if you’re going to poison yourself,” he said, crossing the room and reaching up to tug the window down. “And please lock the door after yourself, we haven’t given you a key so you can get us robbed just because you forgot your common sense.”

Janos reached out and clamped his hand around the window’s lower frame, halting its downward progress. “I’m not poisoning myself,” he argued, the words crisp despite the faint Spanish accent and the clear beginnings of a high visible in the whites of his eyes. He shook his long hair away from his face and took a puff off of the joint before continuing. “It’s only habit forming, not _addictive_. Don’t act all high and mighty just because you pick a different poison,” he said in a long exhale, and Erik appreciated the fact that he’d angled himself slightly in the opposite direction for it.

Two years younger than Erik, Janos didn't actually live in the apartment that Azazel and Erik shared. Before Erik’s somewhat violent departure from the foster system, the two had lived in the same home. Azazel had procured his own place after his first year of suffering in the College of William and Mary’s student housing. Erik had been unwilling to leave Janos completely on his own to navigate the precarious circumstances of the home, which was how he’d ended up giving him a key and an open invitation to visit whenever he needed to. Provided, of course, that he didn't smoke inside the house, and didn't use the place to sell the stuff, promises that he was as good at sticking to as any decent sixteen-year-old could be. Nobody could really complain, all things considered

Erik shrugged a surrender. It was already eight P.M., he was tired, and he didn't want to have a serious argument over something he knew wasn't really his business. “Fine. Just close the window if you’re going to keep doing it,” he said, and pulled the window down after Janos retracted his hand. He lingered at the window for a second or two, looking out past the boy on the roof at the view. The buildings before him were mostly the same as the one he lived in, old and cheap to build and a dismal kind of gray that seemed to describe perfectly the the kind of disillusioned atmosphere generally shared by the inhabitants. He turned away with a half-stifled yawn and tugged off his jacket, a brown leather number that had cost him most of his first paycheck when he’d first started working at the garage. As he crossed to hang it on one of the hooks mounted by the door, he looked around at the living room. The apartment usually wasn't messy enough to bother him that much, but it was starting to get just this side of uncomfortable. There were a few empty bottles that should have been disposed of days ago, and it was Azazel’s turn to dust, Erik would have to remind him…

“Why is Charles Xavier in your sketchbook?”

Erik looked up sharply from where he was clearing a week’s worth of detritus from the kitchen countertop, just to give his hands something to do. Janos had climbed back in, the stubbed-out remains of his joint still smoking in the ashtray on the fire escape. He’d also propped himself up again the arm of the couch to face Erik, a sketchbook open in his lap. Janos held it up, index finger resting just under a...sketch of Charles Xavier that Erik had doodled the night before, half awake in front of the television and trying not to think too much about the half-finished paint job waiting for his return in the garage. Erik paled, and remembered waking up that morning on that same couch. “That’s private, Janos,” he said, tone dropping to a neutral quiet that was ready to turn threatening should it need to.

“You left it on the coffee table,” shrugged Janos, turning over the sketchbook and slowly flipping pages. Erik moved to stand behind the younger boy, reaching for the notebook over his shoulder and meeting with disappointment when Janos launched himself clumsily across the couch, still clutching it.

“How do you even know Charles?” Heat began crawling up Erik’s face, only contributing to his urge to jump out the open window from sheer embarrassment. So he’d drawn his customer, big deal? He’d remembered the gentle curve of his jaw, the sharp-then-not angle of his nose, and the way hair swept back in gentle brown waves from his forehead, so what? It wasn't a reason for Janos’s wide, knowing smile.

“He goes to my school. His sister’s in my English class,” Janos flipped another page as he spoke, his expression the dictionary definition of sugarcoated nonchalance. “How do you even know Charles? Is the real question.” He looked up at Erik through sluggishly accusatory eyes, pink already starting present itself around the irises.

Erik stiffened under the stare, then let out a long sigh that had him curved over his crossed arms. “Remember the party we all went to last Friday? I ran into Raven there, and she introduced me to Charles. They didn't have a way home, so I dropped them off in the morning, and yesterday Charles came to the garage with Azazel’s tag on the left side of his car, and now I’m doing his paint job.” The explanation came out rushed, and by the end of it Erik was suddenly grateful for the way his turtleneck covered the red spreading down from his face.

“And now you’re drawing him shirtless?” Janos turned the sketchbook around again, presenting a drawing of Charles from the waist up sans the sweater-vest-and-skinny-jean uniform that Erik had seen him in twice now. Erik could only guess as to what lay underneath, but he imagined lines just as soft and yet sturdy as those of Charles’s facial structure.

He made another grab at at the top of the sketchbook, and thanked marijuana for the way it slowed Janos' reaction time and let him grasp the top edge firmly, pulling it back to snap it closed against his chest. “Correct anatomy is difficult, I needed the practice,” he countered. Sweeping up the various pencils that littered the coffee table, he pretended not to hear Janos laughing outright as he closed the door to his bedroom.

Erik remembered coming out like it was yesterday--sometimes, he could even feel the ache of the bruises that he’d gotten for it afterwards, and the sharp pain of the two broken ribs. It had happened almost by accident. There had been a boy in his room--Erik wouldn't have been able to dredge up his name from the depths of memory, but that was unimportant. He’d just turned fifteen, they were supposed to have been working on a presentation for freshman Biology, and of course they were getting nowhere. And there had been the small matter of Erik’s huge, disgustingly stereotypical schoolboy crush on the other, and as they sank further and further into apathy where the presentation was concerned, Erik had felt more and more courageous, especially with the sight of his lab partner stretched out lazily over his bed, and he’d made the mistake of leaning over and pressing a light, tentative kiss to his lips. The first punch had come from the boy, relatively mild compared to what had come from his foster father after his lab partner had sprinted for the door yelling different versions of the same adverse sentiment. After seeing the boy out, Sebastian Shaw’s fist had connected with Erik’s face, multiple times, the beating only stopping when a sharp, sickening crack sounded in his side while Emma, the man’s omnipresent girlfriend, watched from the doorway.

Janos and Azazel hadn't cared all that much --just enough to make a team effort out of patching him up afterwards, and tell Erik that they, at least, didn't care who he wanted to fuck as long as he didn't do it in their beds.

It hadn't even crossed Erik’s mind to attempt a real relationship since. Anything that lasted more than the span of time between too drunk to make clear decisions and too hungover to regret it ran the risk of being discovered, and that was just not something he wanted to go through.

“Just saying, he’s probably gay,” Janos called, tone characteristic of the classic teenage stoner who talks without filtering first. “I haven’t actually met him, he just looks really kind of gay…”

Erik ignored him quietly, not trusting himself to respond in a civil fashion. He set the sketchbook down carefully on the small desk in the corner of the room, the pencils going down next to it. They were getting small, and he wasn't getting paid until next month, and what little he had left had to go to rent and food and...whatever. He’d make it work. He dropped heavily onto his makeshift bed, more of a mattress on the floor and some sheets than an actual bed, and let slow exhaustion creep down his limbs. Working at the garage all day made it easy to clear his head, the focus required to make sure everything was done properly driving out all other thought. It was the same with the drawings, except that there was something in the complexity of mechanics that ensured that he didn't think, and sometimes his mind wandered despite himself while he tried to get that one line just right on the paper. And sometimes he just let his hand move, drawing whatever he was thinking of at the moment, and ending up with pages and pages of wavy brown hair and soft smiles.

Damn it, but Charles was distracting, sneaking into his thoughts when he should be focused on something, anything else. The seamless flow of his slightly accented words still echoed in Erik’s ears--” _I must say, Erik, you have superior genes_.”

He knew perfectly well that he didn't, and that Charles probably had better things to do than get...involved...with a low-functioning dyslexic former-foster-child dropout. Erik was nothing if not honest with himself, and he had told himself very sternly that he was exactly the kind of person that people like Charles stayed away from, but it was still nice to picture the friendly way he’d tried to strike up a conversation while waiting for his friend to show up at the garage and take him home.


End file.
